快猫短视频

BUILDING plastic lasers may soon be possible, say researchers at Bell Labs in
New Jersey. A team there has just made the world鈥檚 first organic laser using
tetracene, a substance whose molecules closely mimic those of polymers in the
way they handle electricity and light.

The tetracene molecule contains four benzene rings. When a current is made to
flow through this molecule, light is emitted. And the photons bounce back and
forth between the reflective walls of the tetracene crystal, resulting in the
light amplification that makes a monochromatic (single wavelength) laser beam.
Henrik Sch枚n of Bell Labs鈥� solid state physics department says their
success with tetracene demonstrates the feasibility of plastic lasers, because
the electrical and optical properties of plastics are very similar. Both organic
and plastic lasers are an attractive idea because they need relatively little
power. And plastic lasers would be cheap to produce, says Sch枚n, as they
could be moulded directly onto a plastic substrate.

But they still need to find a polymer molecule that can do the same thing.
Unlike inorganic crystals, polymers could be used to emit light across the
entire spectrum, says Jeremy Burroughes of Cambridge Display Technologies, which
developed the first light-emitting polymers for displays. 鈥淵ou can do it using
semiconductors, but you have to use separate materials for each wavelength,鈥� he says.